Recently Netflix begin its first season rendition of the popular book series “Shadow and Bones”.  As a reader, I don’t always love when my favorite series are turned into shows or movies because it can often be a huge let down.  Thankfully, I haven’t read any of “Shadow and Bones” so I had zero expectations to compare it to and was able to simply focus on the streaming series.  At first, it can be a little hard to follow because the events exist inn entirely different world and realm and familiarizing yourself with this world’s history, terminology and inner workings can be jarring.  They do a decent job of giving information slowly with flashbacks and other story telling mechanisms that still allows the current plot line to run.
I will say that the first 2-3 episodes were kind of all over the place and I couldn’t yet tell if I was going to like the series or not but at least I was intrigued enough to keep going.

The concept of the series is interesting and the acting

is done pretty decently. A couple of the more minor characters are actually my favorites.  There is some pretty good action and humor and we do see some development of the main character, although not as much as I would like.  Basically the world is broken up into not only different countries and class systems, but different kinds of people as well–mainly magic vs non-magic. Each has a hatred and dislike for the other based on stereotypes and misconceptions–can anyone relate to this?….

The magic powers seem to be fairly similar to those of the Avatar series actually–fire, water, air–but also include telepathic and mind-bending powers.  The powers of sunlight and darkness are also HUGE forces at play because they are rare and there is only one bloodline for darkness and only the “savior” figure has the sunlight powers.  I don’t want to give away too much or the series won’t be interesting at all! But of course there is always a twist as to who the true heroes and the true villains are.  I am definitely excited to see what Season 2 will bring.  Season 1 wasn’t amazing, but good enough that I will be wanting to see where the storyline goes in Season 2!!  If you are a fan of sci-fi and magic and looking for a slightly cleaner show than say, “Game of Thrones”, “Shadow and Bones” may be a good fit for you!!